In this article originally published in RankandFile.ca on April 4 Jason Edwards explains what legislated measures would protect workers like the Founders Square cleaners against contract flipping and resulting job loss and loss of union representation. This morning I met with NSFL president Danny Cavanagh and SEIU Local 2 president Jackie Swaine who are lobbying the government to enact similar legislation, we will have a story on that later.

Another rally at Founders Square this morning. Armour Group may have assumed those noisy happenings would stop by now, but supporters of the fired Black workers aren’t going away. For this reporting job I was joined by my son Simon, an excellent photographer.

As if owing workers’ wages and not living up to the terms of a collective agreement isn’t messy enough, now Kit Singh, the owner of six Smiling Goat cafes in Halifax, is accused of firing a worker for speaking out about not getting paid.

Lynn Jones, who helped organize the protests in support of the unjustly fired Founders Square janitors, is very happy about how Halifax responded to her call for action. But she is angry about the way the unfair treatment of Black workers was sanitized in much of the local press. Reporters, grow some spine, she says, and ask some follow-up questions rather than just write down what the Armour Group and the new cleaning contractor tell you.